Step 4: Planning the final details

Of course it's now the details we're working on.
This goes mainly for production of food for people and livestock.

Let me ask you a quick question...

Which vegetable do you eat the most of in your household?
You think?
Well of course it's different from one family to another, but here it's potatoes, onions and tomatoes. Leeks, broccoli, beans, peppers comes close in second.

But this can only be a good guess, as long as  you actually don't know how much you use. You can make accounting on this, or just guess by looking at our favorite recipes as I do.
Even though you know exactly how much you need in a year, something happens, and your harvest will be ruined. So feel free to plan away, just don't expect the result to be exactly as you planned. There will be stuff that you need to buy. Otherwise we're taking self sufficiency in full scale, and that's where we set the limit. It can be fun to get by with whatever you have harvested and slaughtered, but if you run out of stuff 3 months later, you'll in best case lack a lot of vitamins etc in your food, or even starve. No thank you.

We do this out of an environmental point if view AND because it's fun.
But we don't lack something because the harvest went wrong. That's just our choise.

Sometimes you also have to prioritize. You may not have enough land to farm - the focus on expensive and/or rare vegetables. Try a search for small scale self sufficient in this blog. There's a lot of fun stuff you can do with just a little plot if land - or even in your windows. So don't think, this is not for everyone.

I'll say though, that the life we live here is not for everyone. In what "degree" of self sufficieny you want to live, depends very much on how much work you're actually willing to do, and your possibilities for farming at your property.

Now were working on details as  designing your hen house, need of materials to build it and the fence around it. What measurement will fit the number of chickens we want to have(?)

What's the meaurements of the vegetable garden. You'll need them to make your plan for sowing and planting. The distance between plants is written on the label, otherwise you'll have to look it up.
How many plants do you need to feed everyone for a year? And you end up knowing, how many plants (or how may meters of row) you need, and you are ready to find a suitable spot on your plan.
When you chose your place for it, remember to check the hights of surrounding plants. Will there be enough sun? Not too much?

(If you want raised beds, you can start to build frames in the workshop during winter, and they'll be ready for the final set up in spring. I have had many, and there's both pros and cons. You decide the measurements and placement, but no matter what: remember the length of your arms. Don't make the beds too wide.)

It can take a lot of time to end up with the "perfect" plan. All you can do is do your very best from the start.
Have fun :-)